Fighting Dystonia, Chronic Lyme Disease & EDS Type 3… any questions?

Posts tagged ‘Occupational Therapist’

Today has been a slightly better day, in comparison to the last 5 or 6. The last couple of days I have been almost unable to even hobble around the house, without one or two members of my family holding my arms, and helping me. Today however was different! My right leg still shook like mad, and my knee still over extended, but I managed to hobble around unsupported. I only managed a short distance, however I am still overjoyed by this as it is a big improvement compared to the last few days.

I am thinking about asking my Occupational Therapist for a walking stick. At 20 years old, I did not expect that I would have to consider this, however if it helps that’s what counts.. My theory is that having a walking stick will either go one of two ways. The first being that it helps me with my balance, so hobbling around the house becomes slightly easier and less dangerous. The second is that with my natural ability to fall over everything and anything, the walking stick will become yet another obstacle for me to try to avoid, yet will still fall over. However I will never know unless I try, and it is not the end of the world if it does not help. Anything is worth a shot at this point.

Tomorrow my new wheelchair is arriving! It is a self propelled one, which will give me some much wanted independence! I am really rather excited about its arrival and cannot wait to go out in it! It will put my mind at ease as well. When ever I have someone pushing me, I have a mental freak out, I know that they are not going to deliberately through me out of the wheelchair, however I still end up muttering under my breath “stay away from the curb…watch out for the hole” over and over.

My hand also seems a lot better today, I have my fingers crossed that it stays this way. It has improved so much that I did not wear my splint today. This is really positive as I don’t like strapping my hand up, but it helps contain the spasm so I can’t complain.

I have also started to slowly increase my dose of Gabapentin, I am currently taking 1800mg a day and am hoping to get it up to 3600mg a day. As I am finding it to be a very beneficial medication my consultant thought this would be a good idea. I am doing it in steps of 100mg in case I start getting any side effects, that way I know how much my body can handle.

Overall today has been a very positive day and I am hoping that the rest of the week continues to stay positive.

Yesterday I was visited by my GP, my Occupational Therapist and our Local member of parliament. I found the visits interesting in their different ways. The first to visit me was my Occupational Therapist, she is an amazing woman, who does above and beyond what is required of her. She has looked after people who suffer from Dystonia before, so she has a good idea of what the condition is like. Upon being in the house for 20 minutes, and watching me have bad jaw spasms and many Non Epileptic Seizures, she could not believe that I had not been admitted into a hospital as an emergency case!

Next came my GP. My GP is lovely, he does try his best to cope with my condition, but he has never dealt with Dystonia before so has very little understanding of how to treat/cope with it. My GP came to do a home visit as my head has not been right since I hit it on New Years Day and because due to my new Seizures there was no way we could safely get me out of our house. He did the usual basic observations, e.g my blood pressure, my pulse and my temperature. All where normal except my temperature which was ever so slightly up. My GP had never seen my Seizures before, and I don’t think he had a clue what to do with them. After checking me over, he decided that my body was most likely just fighting something off and that was what was causing the new seizures, and the collapse the other day. He did say he would inform my consultant as well.

Now this is the bit I find interesting. Compare the reactions of the Occupational Therapist who has seen Dystonia before, and the Doctor who has never seen Dystonia before. One thinks I need to be hospitalised as an emergency case and the other thinks my body just has a bug. I think these two very different reactions, are very interesting.

Finally our local member of parliament came to visit. This visit did not go as I had hoped, he listened, made noises in the right places and said he would right a letter. I’m not sure what I was expecting him to say but I had hoped for a more positive outcome than what did happen The most interesting thing he did was freak when our cat entered the room. It seems that I am going to have to do more complaining myself. I plan to start by writing to the heads of the hospitals whose system have failed, and take it from there.

Living with Dystonia is never going to be easy, and I can only hope that I will be one of the 1 in 20 of us who randomly, for no known medically reason, go into ‘remission’. I plan to draw as much attention as I can to this condition, until someone in the NHS or government realise that their system is failing us!

Well after arguing with countless people down the phone and battling with the NHS I am finally getting some help. Yesterday I had a visit from a rather lovely Occupational Therapist, who had seen Dystonia patients before. I was quiet happy she had chosen to come yesterday as the dystonia alien had decided that I was not allowed to walk,move my fingers or see. She therefore witnessed my leg spasms cause me to fall, then my struggle to get up, she saw how often I would go blind, and how painful the whole thing was. This meant she could see just how much Dystonia affected my life and how much I struggled with doing the most basic things for myself.

She was extremely understanding and was quick to put forwards ideas that would help me in the house and with getting out the house. It was nice to have someone listen to me, who understood my condition, and really wanted to help make my life a little bit easier.

Official Blogger for DMFR Canada

dystonia and me

I'm 24 years old and a student. I suffer from Generalised Dystonia and Non Epileptic Seizures. I have set up my blog to help spread awarness and bring light to this condition. This blog will be full of all my experiences that happen during my dystonia journey, from natterings, musings, moans, laughs, highs and lows. :-) It will be a little bit of everything